


Like Pearls Slipping Off a String

by katayla



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: F/M, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:32:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla/pseuds/katayla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a normal day for Michael and Fiona.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Pearls Slipping Off a String

**Author's Note:**

  * For [girl_wonder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_wonder/gifts).



“Wake up, Michael.” Fiona poked him in the side. They’d slept at Michael’s loft. It felt like home to her, for all that she still had an apartment in her own name.

 

He turned on his side. “I’m awake.”

 

“Then get up.”

 

“You’re not.”

 

Fiona grinned. “Want to do something about that?”

 

He rolled on top of her. “Good morning.”

 

“Morning,” Fiona said, and pulled him down for a kiss.

 

She’d learned to love these moments. Four years ago, all she’d wanted was a normal life with Michael. But she’d never truly believed she would have even this much, these glimpses of what she thought the average couple was like. Mornings where they woke up late and stayed in bed, blowing off all other responsibilities.

 

The thing about being a spy was you had a lot of downtime. That didn’t come up in the stories you told. Then it was all explosions and narrow escapes and gunfire. But in between all that, there were long stretches of time when almost nothing happened. When the only clients had easily fixable problems and the issue of Michael’s burn notice receded into the distance.

 

After a while, they got out of bed. Michael made the coffee while Fiona got out the yogurt. The familiarity of the morning routine was a comfort. They’d done the same back in Ireland. Their lives were so unpredictable in so many ways, but they’d managed to create some sense of the mundane.

 

They were between even the boring clients now, so they filled their conversation with plans for the day. Shopping. Tinkering with their cars. Cleaning. Taking care of all the little details that got dropped by the wayside when their lives were in danger.

 

At the grocery store, they were surrounded by other couples. From the outside, Michael and Fiona looked like any other couple. She liked that. It was maybe the best cover she’d ever had and she didn’t even have to try that hard. Fiona Glenanne, girlfriend of Michael Westen.

 

Not that they used those terms. At first, it was because of Michael’s insistence that they weren’t, that they _couldn’t,_ be involved. Now? Maybe it was because she didn’t need the label anymore. She knew what he was to her and, lately, she’d begun to feel like she knew what she was to him, too.

 

After the grocery store, they went back to the loft and Fiona sat at the counter and watched Michael cook lunch. He loved to cook. It was one of her favorite facts about him, one of the pieces that made her feel like she knew Michael, like he _let_ her know him.

 

“Good?” he asked, after he fed her a bite of the stir-fry.

 

She smiled at him. “Perfect.”

 

It wasn’t a rule that they couldn’t speak about spy stuff on days like these, but, somehow, they rarely did. Turns out their lives really were full enough without it. Michael would share his worries about his mom or the latest news from Nate. Fiona would fill him in on Sam’s latest adventures with his lady friends.

 

Mostly, they just talked and enjoyed each other’s presence. Maybe that’s all she’d ever really wanted. Not to know Michael loved her, but to know he _liked_ her, that he chose to spend time with her.

 

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. A _good_ blur. Fiona liked to imagine endless strings of days like these, where she got to end of them and had no idea what she’d done all day. She knew it would get boring, understood better now that the normal life wasn’t quite for her either, that she’d miss her bombs and her guns, but it was a nice image. Like an alternate life she’d almost had.

 

And, when night fell, Fiona attempted to cook dinner. Inevitably, Michael would step in and they’d jostle each other in the kitchen, laughing and talking, and eventually coming up with something edible.

 

When they went to bed, they just slept. Sometimes, that was enough, to sleep next to each other, to hear each other breathe, to know the other person was there.

 

Tomorrow, things might change. You never knew when a client would come knocking or a new enemy would show up. But Fiona had learned to live in the now and the now was _glorious._


End file.
